Momento Mori
by MaxRide05
Summary: 'Another year, they tossed everybody into a landscape of nothing but boulders and sand and scruffy bushes. I particularly hated that year. Many contestants were bitten by venomous snakes or went insane from thirst.' – Katniss Everdeen, Hunger Games. Katniss wasn't the only one who hated that year. In District two a family member is left behind. Slight Clove-Cato-OC friendship.


'_Another year, they tossed everybody into a landscape of nothing but boulders and sand and scruffy bushes. I particularly hated that year. Many contestants were bitten by venomous snakes or went insane from thirst.'_ – Katniss Everdeen, **Hunger Games. **Katniss wasn't the only one who hated that year. In District two a family member is left behind. Slight Clove-Cato-OC friendship.

**WARNING: T because it is the Hunger Games, mentions of mutilation ahead. There is also some language.  
**

**Feedback is appreciated. Sequel is in the works.**

**Disclaimer: Don't own it. Or the lyrics to Just Like You, they're Three Day Grace's.  
**

**Momento Mori **

**Remember Your Mortality**

**Remember you will Die **

"NO!" My scream lingers in an echo that bounces around the sparsely populated plaza, mingling with the sound of his cannon.

It's finally sounded but she's still hacking away at his headless corpse with the blunt, rusty axe her mentor sent her.

I still feel as if every swing of her axe that connects with his body has been inflicted on me in vicious swipes slanting across my chest. The burn starts from my heart like someone's trying to get at it, and stops above my right hip. Only the lack of blood on my shirt and no evidence of someone having stood in front of me to inflict the wounds in the first place dispel that theory. Now_ I have the sense of what physical pain feels like…_

"Delphine… _Delphine_."

Someone's shaking me, whispering in my ear (or maybe it's just me who's shaking). For a moment I think it's Perseas (only her voice is that quiet and only she would dare) but then I remember; she's in hospital. She left me.

Like Lupus…

"_I volunteer." _His voice rings out loud and clear in my head as if he is right behind me. I barely just stop myself from turning around to check.

The 'wounds' on my chest flare in pain as it tightens. My eyes burn. I can't breathe. I wonder if this is what it feels like to drown. I feel a sharp, searing jab of burning hatred somewhere within the encroaching numbness; only those from District Four would know.

"I'll kill her."

I don't realise it's me who said that until a girl to my left, just behind me says in a vaguely irritated manner, "You can't kill her; you're not in the Games. It's up to District _Seven_ now." Lupus' ally.

Her name is…

"Amber. Her name is Amber."

"Alright, I didn't ask." The girl says with a haughty tone. She's a girl from the Academy who had been in my dorm, slept in the bunker two rows over from mine, but for the life of me I can't recall her name. Not that it matters.

"Well, you should know." My voice is quiet but there is an edge to it. Can she not even be bothered to know the name of my cousin's remaining ally, even if he had broken the so-called Career Alliance earlier than most and over an issue viewed as trivial? My cousin who, up until a few moments ago, had been District Two's only living tribute and in the final three remaining in the arena. And now there are two…

I wince, clutch my churning stomach. I might be sick.

"Delphine…" Says a concerned voice in my ear. It sounds strangely familiar.

"Lucia?"

"Yeah." She's the one who shook me, I realise belatedly. I had been so focused on the Games, on Lupus, I didn't even care about anything else. But…

"It's all over now, isn't it?" I'm not even thinking about the District's lost chance on another victor. No way in hell. I'm thinking about me losing the only person who I know I'm related to (even if I, alongside countless other Academy Tributes in training, had been taken from my family when I was too young to understand what was happening). The physical resemblance between us, not to mention our shared last name, Rossetti, is a testament to that fact. And I… I loved him like he was my brother. I must have nearly fainted because the next thing I know Lucia is holding me up. She doesn't say a thing.

I bite into my bottom lip to hold in the more anguished scream that's building up in my chest. The Peacekeepers won't take kindly to the disturbance no matter whose cousin I am. Was… And I'm in no mood to face Peacekeepers or their wretched guns. Not after Perseas…

I draw in a shaky breath, try not to choke. Break down and sob. When he died he took my heart with him, I'm sure of it. Wait, no, long before that, when he left on the train to the Capitol. When he kissed my forehead in farewell in the Justice building… This is too much after the other events of this year.

My body must have become too heavy for her to hold up because Lucia is starting to lower me to the ground of the plaza, her hands clasped around my arms.

I start to mutter to myself. I feel as if I'm dreaming. This can't be real. He cannot be dead.

_That boy had my cousin's face_, I try to reassure myself, still muttering, _that's all_. Lupus – the one I know – wouldn't have done what that boy had in the Arena. Then I remember his last words (when the true Lupus shone through), said while he'd been circling his traitor ally from Four. It had been a message, I'm positive it was…

Behind me I hear someone gruffly say, "'Scuse… Move it!" and the sounds of a scuffle and another voice, a girl, calling out to me. The sounds ring out in the silence of the plaza.

_Be quiet, _I urge them in my mind, wanting to say it out loud but my mouth won't work. At least not properly.

With the images of his last moments seared into the back of my eyelids, I cannot even comprehend what's happening around me. The sounds that accompanied them are ringing in my ears.

"_Hide your mistakes  
'Cause they'll find you, burn you…"  
_

He'd never even screamed.

I'm… proud of him for that.

"His cannon has fired so why is she still hitting him…?" the softly spoken words slid passed my lips like blood. Unstoppable, bitter, even when it's out of my mouth.

"Del…" They've finally reached me. The two who had acted as if they were my age of twelve and not the ten years that they actually are.

The girl stands behind me, to my left, her leg brushing against my back as she remains standing. That may be the biggest show of support I can get from her. I'm touched. After this… when the Games are done, the Victor won, both of us will be escorted back to prison, her because of her ineptness at surveillance while marauding solo and me on false charges. They only let us out so we could watch this properly in one of the squares, and not through the tiny windows set high in the walls of our small cells. So we could see the end.

The boy kneels behind me, slowly moving forward to wrap his arms around my waist. His chest less than an inch from my back he rests his chin on my shoulder. I don't push him away, though it feels… stifling. It can't quite be called a hug but it still makes me stiffen in response, then I slowly relax at the feel of his moving chest against my back. _He's_ breathing, he's alive… that knowledge calms though his next words murmured in my ear do not.

"Del," I still hate that nickname, yet can't find it in me to say anything right now, "she's moved on now. She's looking for Seven."

"Amber," I murmur before I can stop myself. She's going to die. It makes no sense for me to be more familiar towards her than I should be _now_ of all times. She has no weapon… unless she smashes a rock over Four's head. I hope she does.

I focus on the large screen in front of me, keeping the past phantasmagoria in my mind's eye at bay, but only just. Right now a thirst for vengeance is emerging in me, overpowering the throbbing grief that's quailing beneath the crashing waves of _nothing_. Four had been bitten before attacking Lupus, her screech of pain being what had alerted him to her sulking presence around a large boulder in the first place.

Her pain is visible now in her pinched expression and awkward gait but she doesn't slow. She's not even anywhere near Am-Seven as the footage from the cameras show. Four's walking away from the place where she'd killed Lupus and also away from Seven.

The screen now shows another image: Seven, strong, unwavering, trustworthy older sister to a younger brother Seven who has turned green upon seeing Lupus' body parts. Her eyes are wide as she stares into the distance, clenching and unclenching her hands into fists. She mutters something too low for the Capitol technology to hear, now staring at the boulder. She moves as if to strike out at something only she can see but then relaxes after a few seconds, mumbling to herself again.

I can only pick out a few words: "_Four", "bitch", "dead"._

Then the hovercraft comes. Seven scurries away, after Four, but we, the viewers, can still see that it takes the hovercraft more than one trip to collect all of Lupus' body parts off the floor of the Arena.

Cato's arms around me tighten, and Lucia shifts beside me, looking a little green herself. I can only sit here, who knows how many miles away, and anticipate Four's death like it is a feast fit for Snow himself.

An Instructor from the Academy strides towards us then. "Up."

Just that single curt word.

"No." That's Lucia who reaffirms her grip on my arm.

Clove's leg is now pressing into my back but that escapes my notice when Cato leans even closer to me from behind, his breath caressing my ear as he speaks, "Group support." I can imagine him staring up at the instructor unwaveringly. The same way he'd stared at me when I met him and Clove properly for the first time, under the table in a Victor's house, hoping to filch a small feast from the Victory tour celebrations. The warmth of his chest against my back is comforting… I'm sure he knows this is the only time I'd ever allow him to wrap his arms around me like this.

The Instructor leaves in a huff, most likely quailing under the combined force of the stares of my three friends. One in prison – like me – and to return there when this is over, another, a girl institutionalised in the 'mental ward' section of a local orphanage and the other, a boy with a superiority complex and a developing talent with swordsmanship.

And I'm just the Tribute in prison for a crime I would die before even thinking of committing. I'm an Tribute Academy reject, they've wanted to get rid of me for some time, I don't know how long. According to them, while I'm a good enough fighter, I'm not sane and they're worried whatever I have is contagious so they were going to send me off to be sectioned at the same orphanage as Lucia.

And then, on the second night that Lupus had spent in the Arena, some rather young Peacekeepers-in-training found me in an abandoned mine not far from our village, Perseas slumped in my arms and a gun by my side. Or at first glance they'd thought it was a gun, just as I had when Perseas had held it up to her temple… Then I was arrested. Now the people at the Academy have all the more reason to want me out of training; they don't tend to give ex-cons second chances to train and board at the school as Tribute. When I enter that building again it will be as if I am one of the Untrained or Useless, unless I start independent training, show some merit and they let me be an official Tribute student again.

...

From the moment Four and Lupus had started to circle each other in the dance of the hunters I've felt as if I was watching a movie. Or perhaps even before that, when I saw the Games again properly in the square and not in prison (where they don't show anything but mandatory government stuff). I felt grief and anger and who knows what else when he was beheaded but it was as if I'd gotten attached to one of the characters - actors - onscreen. The wiry sixteen year old boy with skin the colour of honey and slanted hazel eyes. The boy with unruly dark brown curls and high cheekbones. The boy whose fingers twitched every few seconds like it was a compulsion he had to go through. As if he was brimming with energy and didn't know what to do with it.

Aside from his inability to keep still, I couldn't identify him with the older Academy boy who had resembled me so much we'd been mistaken for brother and sister. The boy who snuck me more food than mandatory so that my never ending aches of hunger could be stopped. The boy who had practically threatened a teacher, Mr Riva until he told us that, no, we weren't siblings, but yes, we two alone were related to each other out of all the other Rossetti's in our village. The boy who seemed to thrive on disobeying authority figures but who never got severely punished for it because, like me, he remembers being labelled as 'good stock' when he was younger, and automatically being sent to the local mixed Academy to be schooled in the role of Tribute. Tribute amongst all the Untrained, Peacekeepers-in-training and the Useless at the Academy. Useless tended to live at the orphanage, where I'm set to go after all this, it's a place I feel as if I've already lived in to be honest…

Seven – who I wonder if I can just refer to as Lawson after watching her reaction to seeing Lupus – has found Four, but she still doesn't have a weapon. No… now she has her sword. Its hanging limply from one hand, she must have found it while she walked.

Before, Four had used carefully manoeuvred movements when mutilating my cousin. First she'd swung at his knees – and she had nicked one before swiping at his chest in the same swing – then she ensured the kill by swinging for his head when he'd stumbled forward. But now her movements are hectic, careless - not like a Career at all. The venom in her veins must be _very_ slow working. If I had the inclination or energy to smile I would.

I just watch as they clash, sword to axe, a flurry of movement. Then the screaming starts. It's Lawson. Four is skimming the edge of the axe's blade against her bronzed skin, muttering something about traitors.

A frown twists my lips as my brow furrows. She's a hypocrite; the cannons from the other side of the arena had barely finished sounding before she'd decided to break her tenuous alliance with Lupus and Lawson by throwing her axe at his head from behind the large boulder after she'd been stupid enough to get bitten by a snake as long as my arm.

While I was in prison Lupus had had some sort of altercation with Four's District partner, I heard as much from Lucia. He'd punched the older boy in the face effectively excluding himself from the Career Alliance. It'd been something to do with a younger Tribute, from Three I think, who they'd been tracking. The boy from Four had wanted to have a little fun with his kill, who Lucia had said looked around our age, what with her small stature and wide 'scared crapless' eyes, despite being around Lupus' age.

She said Lupus had wanted to kill her outright. That's when the argument started. Lupus punched Four. Then when walking away he slammed a rock into the girl's head and, in a show of strength that belied his wiry frame, had snapped her neck. Apparently her cannon had been a beautiful soundtrack to the derisive yells and curses of the boy from Four.

And then the girl from Four had joined Lupus and Lawson a few days after that. I still don't know just how they all became allies. In fact this whole thing confuses me. I'd questioned Lucia, asking just what _exactly _had Lupus done while aggravating Four. She said she didn't remember exactly. She didn't know him like I did so she didn't see anything of significance. Lupus, as I knew him, wouldn't have walked away from the argument until Four's lifeless body was at his feet. I'll have to wait until the replays to see for myself.

Lupus not rushing head first into anything really wasn't something I saw every day. If he'd had a plan before he punched Four I would _definitely_ question just what the hell was wrong with him. Maybe he was thirsty…

A cannon finally sounds. Lawson's dead. She fought valiantly but still died by the hands of Lupus' murderer. They were all weak in the end, even those other five in the final eight who'd died from either dehydration, snake venom or some trap of the Gamemakers'.

Now the girl from Four – Naylor Floriss – is Victor of the sixty sixth Hunger Games. But she isn't standing to embrace her victory, she's on the floor convulsing, choking. Then through the fanfare of trumpets Claudius Templesmith is cut off mid sentence by a sound that I can only describe as horrifying or glorious.

Cannon fire.

Horrifying because she is dead and I cannot exact revenge on her, or _her_ killer, the Arena, for taking that chance from me. And glorious because her end came before she could enjoy the riches that came of her kills. Her mutilating her opponents.

Then the Peacekeepers come, scattering people in the plaza. They escort Clove and I back to prison.

And now I shall have the rest of the week alone with only me, myself, I, and the ghosts of the arena for company in my cell while I await my trial.

Wonderful.

Lupus' last words plague me.

"_Hide your mistakes  
'Cause they'll find you, burn you_

_"If you want to get out alive_  
_run for your life."_

The changed words of a song, long forgotten to the rest of the world – well, Panem. Only a select few in this District would even come close to knowing that song, and others, from the 21st century. Mr Riva, brilliant man that he is, was somehow able to get a hold of memorabilia from the very distant past. Books, films, and music players that could fit in the palm of your hand – i-something they were called. I think it was pods…

And he showed them to the handful of student pariahs who tended to congregate in his History classroom, not wanting to be among others of their division where they were called 'weirdo's, 'freaks' and 'loners'. Friends weren't encouraged at Academies but apparently allies were. And those students had none but, perhaps in some cases, each other.

Among the pariahs were several Untrained; me – the scrawny girl who was a notoriously picky eater and rather antisocial but in a Martianesque way, unlike most other Tributes who were just gruff; Lupus – the unintentional troublemaker of a Tribute who blurted things out, couldn't keep still but was a good fighter (as all 'good stock' were supposed to be); Lucia – said to be an Academy reject, so in other words Tribute turned Useless, who claimed that she wasn't stupid, words just wouldn't keep still when she tried to read, like they were swimming off the page, and Perseas – the junior Peacekeeper (which in and of itself should have made her a pariah to all _but_ her own division) who was rather reserved, only spoke to a select few and froze when around large crowds.

I was entranced by it all. The books were strange but entertaining, like the films. And the music that had been on the iPods… well let's just say there wasn't a day gone by where I didn't have headphones in my ears when I went to visit Mr Riva.

Lupus as well – he said the music had channelled his feelings in a way training didn't. He was right.

I loved the rhythm that came with running, feeling my feet pounding on the ground below. And I loved having music pounding in my ears, driving away all other thoughts. So to imagine running while listening to music was what I thought paradise might be like, if we could take anything out of Mr Riva's room that is.

But we couldn't; everything was kept a secret. Between the pariahs only.

Yet I doubt any of them understood the message in Lupus' last words. A call to arms. Or what I imagine one would be like.

Lupus knew I would avenge him. He expected it. That I wouldn't let his death go unpunished. So when my time comes to be an actual tribute I have to hide my mistakes, as he said, or they'll burn me. I guess he means during the reaping, when I will have to prove myself worthy of being a tribute. And then again around my mentors I can't let my mistakes, my differences show so as to make me seem inept. And then again to the Capitol, during the interview with Flickerman most of all.

Then in the Arena I will have to use my strengths – my biggest being my speed. Lupus knew that.

So when the time comes to avenge him I'll be ready.

District Four better watch out.


End file.
